Sorry, use ISERROR instead of ISERR. VLOOKUP returns #N/A which isn't considered an error by ISERR but is considered an error by ISERROR.
=IF(ISERROR(VLOOKUP(B1, A$1:A$65536,1,false)),"Distinct","Overlap")

For a simple one-way horizontal text comparison, you could use the SEARCH (not case-sensitive) or FIND (case-sensitive) functions:

=IF(ISERR(SEARCH(B1,A1)),"Distinct","Overlap")

This tests whether cell A1 contains the value of cell B1; if it does, the function returns "Overlap", if it doesn't, an error is generated and trapped to return "Distinct" - these return values could be any appropriate text or number.

If you want to test whether column A contains a whole instance of B1 anywhere, then use VLOOKUP:
=IF(ISERR(VLOOKUP(B1, A$1:A$65536,1,false)),"Distinct","Overlap")

Copy the desired formula down the column as appropriate. The VLookup doesn't need to search the entire column A, only as far down as the data goes, so replace 65536 with the last row of your data.

Your example doesn't show any "overlap" between the two sets of numbers, so I think it's still not clear what you consider an overlap to be, but the two methods I've described above will do comparisons of values in column B in two different ways to column A.

Featured Post

Manage projects of all sizes how you want. Great for personal to-do lists, project milestones, team priorities and launch plans.
- Combine task lists, docs, spreadsheets, and chat in one
- View and edit from mobile/offline
- Cut down on emails

What is a Form List Box? (skip if you know this)
The forms List Box is the alternative to the ActiveX list box. If you are using excel 2007, you first make sure you have a developer tab (click the Orb)->"Excel Options"->Popular->"Show Developer tab…

The view will learn how to download and install SIMTOOLS and FORMLIST into Excel, how to use SIMTOOLS to generate a Monte Carlo simulation of 30 sales calls, and how to calculate the conditional probability based on the results of the
Monte Carlo …